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When Jhanay Davis was an undergraduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University, her academic path took a sharp turn from agricultural science research to human genetics. Now a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, she credits a unique VCU program for pointing her in another direction.
“You could say that ‘Spit for Science’ had a huge impact on my career trajectory,” Davis says.
The Spit for Science program, established in 2011, collects saliva samples and detailed lifestyle survey results from volunteering VCU students each year. With more than 13,000 participants since its inception, the database has been used by numerous VCU student and faculty researchers, and it is shared with the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium database and the National Institute of Health’s database of Genotypes and Phenotypes.
As of last month, more than 1,600 VCU students have completed the survey this year, and more than 1,200 have provided a saliva sample.
“We isolate DNA from the saliva samples, and from there, we do a genome-wide association study,” says Ananda Amstadter, professor at the VCU School of Medicine and co-director of Spit for Science. “GWAS chips are the same chips used for 23andMe or Ancestry.com. After quality control and data cleaning, we can look for associations of different genetic variants across the genome.”
The self-reported survey asks questions about lifestyle, behavior and personal history that, when paired with a DNA sample, can help scientists make associations between genetic backgrounds and lived experiences.
For example, Amstadter says, “My team is focused on post-traumatic stress disorder and comorbid stress disorder. Multiple students of mine have used [Spit for Science] data to understand the relationship between trauma exposure and PTSD across the college years and how that influences mental health and substance use.”
“A lot of this research is still moving forward,” says Karen Chartier, associate professor of social work at VCU and co-director with Amstadter of Spit for Science. “Risk for substance use, risk for mental health [issues] — these are more complex traits, so multiple genes would be related to those behaviors.”
A significant benefit of Spit for Science, Chartier notes, is the sheer amount of data made available for young researchers.
“In addition to a Spit for Science class, we have paid internships [that] students are eligible for in the spring and summer,” she says. “It’s also a really nice resource for early career faculty. You’re kind of starting off your career and thinking, ‘How do I ask questions that are interesting to me?’”
Davis’ story is a testament to that aspect of the program.
“I knew I liked research and wanted to do research, but being in Spit for Science helped me find and explore my interest in mental health disorders,” she says. During her internship, Davis studied whether a family history of substance use can leave a subject vulnerable to eating disorders and found a preliminary association between the two.
“It’s such a diverse and interesting data set,” Davis says. “I’m a major advocate for diversity in science and diversity in our research. We’re not all the same, and our backgrounds really have an impact on who we are as people.”
